In a July letter to Governor Deval Patrick, Harvard’s Conservation Commission has expressed “deep concerns” over a plan to lay a high-capacity natural gas pipeline through undeveloped public and private lands from the Berkshires, across the northern parts of the state, to Dracut.
The commission urged the governor to oppose Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct natural gas expansion project. Kinder Morgan is also proposing lateral extensions from the existing line in Fitchburg, Clinton, and from Bolton to Worcester.
The letter, drafted by Commissioner Jim Breslauer, cited increased risks to wildlife habitats and water supplies, without local conservation commissions’ regulatory protection, if the pipeline passes through sensitive wetlands and buffer zones as proposed.
“If local residents and businesses must comply with the Wetlands Protection Act and local bylaws, so should Kinder Morgan,” the letter said.
Expressing support for energy conservation and renewable energy, the commissioners wrote that expanding the transportation of natural gas produced from “highly polluting and energy intensive” fracking was contrary to the commonwealth’s stated environmental goals.
With the letter, the Harvard commission’s voice joins those from other nearby towns. In June Groton’s Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to oppose the pipeline, and town meetings in Pepperell and Groton passed resolutions opposing the expansion. A forum in Lunenburg last week with a Kinder Morgan representative drew concerns from residents and some attending legislators, as did earlier forums in Bolton and Berlin.
Proponents of the project, principally Kinder Morgan and regional utility companies, said the increased capacity will be needed to meet rising demand in the Northeast, bring in $25 million in tax revenue, and create jobs. Representatives of the International Labor Union of North America attended the Lunenburg forum in support of the pipeline’s potential for new construction jobs beginning in 2017.
Opponents, primarily citizen and environmental groups, question Kinder Morgan’s figures on energy demand in light of the region’s growing supply of energy from renewable sources and its improving energy conservation. They have speculated that the pipeline’s increased capacity—three times the initial demand estimate—and its potential link to exiting ports from Dracut indicate preparations to export natural gas, something Kinder Morgan said it has not ruled out.
A broader letter in June from the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions and more than 100 other public and private groups urged the six New England governors to fully and publicly evaluate “all tools in the region’s energy toolbox” before endorsing large-scale infrastructure investments that would be publicly financed through new electricity tariffs, as the pipeline is now planned to be.
